Chapter 11
Natascha, Alice, Aundrea and Flareon finally woke up as we had packed everything but the tent away.
"Sheesh you were tired, weren't you?" I laughed
"Ugh, don't feel so great" Natascha groaned
"Oh, are you ok?" I said more concerned
"Uh…" and with that she clasped
"Oh my gosh! Natascha!" I shouted, she didn't flinch. Thankfully Murphy heard me and looked at Natascha with shock.
"Oh, no!" He picked her up with me still looking at her with concern. I suddenly looked over at Aundrea who was slowly getting out of the tent, he didn't look great himself.
"Aundrea, are you ok?"
"Uh, well I kind of feel, tips…" he started to lose his balance and then collapsed exactly like Natascha.
"No, not Aundrea as well!" I ran over to Amy and tugged at her trousers, she was looking over Murphy's shoulder at Natascha. She looked round at me and said
"Oh, Darius, what do you want?" I directed her to Aundrea in answer. She gave a short gasp and ran over to Aundrea and scooped him up
"Look Murphy, the same has happened to Aundrea!" He looked over trying to think of anything that could of done this. He quickly put Natascha on the ground, so I ran over to her and laid my head upon her chest
"Oh, thank goodness she is still breathing." I thought to myself. I stepped a couple of steps back to give Murphy a bit of room to check over Natascha. Amy was still cradling Aundrea who was still completely out of it. After a few tense minutes Amy couldn't hold her questions in for much longer
"What happened to them?"
"They were poisoned..." He replied grievously
"What? You're kidding right?" Giles said unbelievingly
"I'm afraid not, what I don't understand is how it got into their system…" he went back into his thoughts once again
"Wait, what about Flareon?" Giles suddenly shouted, he went into his sleeping bag and took out Flareon who started to open her eyes.
"Whoa!" She awoke startled.
"You're ok?" I asked in confusion. As I looked on I noticed the horizon kind of shifting, the sky and ground seemed to be doing battle as I endeavoured to figure out which I was standing on. The sky began to fade, as did the ground and I felt absolutely nothing all over my body except a persistent tiredness.
"Oh no!" I hit the ground and passed out.
After a while I slowly began opening my eyes, I had a hideous headache but at least I was awake. My vision started returning to normal with Murphy and Amy watching me.
"Whoa, what happened?" I groaned.
"You were affected by the same poison as Natascha and Aundrea, but you're ok now." Amy replied kindly, looking into my eyes as she leaned over me. She stroked my head with a cold towel which gave me a bit of relief from my whacking headache. My eyes met hers and just for a split second everything seemed to be put on pause, the stroking had stopped and everything had grown quiet. I felt a strange guilt come over me which caused me to shuffled uncomfortably causing Amy to carry on her nursing.
"Wait how can you understand me? I'm a Jol…" I looked down to find I was human, and clothed.
"Wha… How did you?"
"Natascha did it" Murphy said before I could finish "she transformed you into being human as soon as she awoke"
"Wait so who got my clothes?" My curiosity heightened slightly.
"Uhh" Murphy and Amy looked at each other with embarrassment
"Well, me and Giles were out looking for a cure at the time Natascha changed you back, so Amy was the only human at the camp…". I looked over at Amy whose cheeks were slowly turning from a pale skin colour to bright red.
"Oh… So I guess you found the antidote?" Trying to move the conversation on.
"Well yes, but we found a better cure for you"
"Huh?"
"Apparently, we all had it, well except me, Alice and Flareon. For some reason we had none of the substance inside us, not a trace"
"hmm" I thought as Amy finally built up the courage to replace the wet towel upon my forehead allowing me to experience another burst of relief.
"Did you have anything at the village?"
"What me?" Murphy asked
"Both of you"
"Well I had the bottle of water remember" Amy said
"Did you get it from a vending machine?"
"Oh no, it was a bottle I already had, I asked them to refill it"
"I didn't have anything…" Murphy said. A large grin crossed his face "Of course, its so obvious!" He said cursing himself
"What is?" Amy said confused
"Look" he went off and dragged Giles over to Amy "Did you buy anything Giles?" His face turned sad and he sighed
"Fine, you got me, he pulled out of his small backpack a Flareon plushy "I bought a Flareon plushy" he said annoyed. Me, Amy and Murphy just looked at each other trying not to laugh.
"Right" Murphy said seriously while me and Amy were still killing ourselves.
"Did you buy anything else, not to do with plushies?"
"Uh, well I had a coffee, but that's it"
"Exactly!" Murphy said triumphantly
"What? How?" Giles said. Me and Amy had finally calmed down so I decided to add
"Don't you get it, Me, Amy, Natascha, you and Aundrea all had something to drink in the village, they poisoned you!" Giles looked down at me in shock, down because I was lying on my sleeping bag on the grass.
"You think so?"
"I know so, but wait why didn't it affect Giles and Amy?" I asked Murphy
"Well there's a simple answer to that, it's not toxic to humans"
"That would explain why, when Darius was a Jolteon, he got the symptoms of it, but as a human the symptoms quickly started to fade"
"Well they didn't fade quick enough" I interjected out of agitation, I just got a smile in response from Amy.
"I'm sure the effects will ware away soon" she said sweetly. Even though I knew I wasn't in any danger, what she said comforted me a lot. I slowly closed my eyes as when they were open they felt as if they were worsening my headache. I felt once again the towel brush over my head. I heard the others start walking away, I heard Murphy go in the direction of Amy's tent so I guess he was going to start putting it down. After a few more seconds I felt as if I was almost asleep, Amy took the towel away from my head to allow me to go to sleep, but shockingly I felt something else on my forehead, it wasn't the towel, I knew that for sure, I saw an outline of someone through my eyelids, as the sun was directly in front of me and behind them.
"It was Amy" the sensation then stopped and I heard her slowly walk away.
"No..." I said in shock
"This is not good, what if Aundrea finds out, or even worse, Natascha!" I thought to myself. The dazing affect continued to stifle my thought process to the point that I couldn't worry about it and just accepted it.
It was just a kiss I silently contemplated to myself as I promptly drifted back off to sleep.
I finally woke up the next morning
"What the...?" Murphy was a few meters in front of me and heard me. He just turned around and laughed.
"You ok there Darius?"
"How long have I...!
"About a day, to be honest I'm actually kind of glad you stayed asleep for another day, it allowed me to plan for today and I found the poison itself" he said proudly
"Really what was it?" he reached into his pocket and brought out a tiny mushroom, no bigger than the tip of his pinkie. I looked on in disbelief.
"You're kidding, right?" he shook his head and chuckled.
"Wait a minute, I swear I've eaten one of them" I thoughtfully exclaimed, thinking back to a particular Sunday lunch which contained several healthy options all placed in china bowls during mum's vegetarian phase.
"Most likely you have; they're delicious!" Then, without hesitation, he popped it into his mouth.
"Wha...?"
"Remember they're not poisonous to humans, there actually really good for you"
"Humph" I sighed, "I could have been taken down by something a little more, threatening but no, it had to be a puny mushroom" I jokingly complained in a childish manner.
I felt stirring beside me, it was beloved. She looked up at me sleepily with a big smile on her face, I could tell she was worried about me.
"Hmm, I wonder... I wonder if she knew what Amy had done?" I thought to myself, she continued smiling at me so I guessed she didn't, well, I hoped.
I felt well enough to get up and eat something, but not much, just a sandwich and soon as everything was pretty much all packed up, we were on our way to the next house.
"So can I see what route we're taking then Murphy?" I asked to break the new silence that was looming over the group.
"Uh, sure" he said surprised that I had any interest in what he had done, generally I would just leave him to his own devices but I decided to look at where we were heading to, seemed a sensible option. He showed me a map of Johto and a large red line which I assumed to be our route.
"Wait a sec, this can't be right?" I said confused
"I'm afraid it's perfectly correct, we are heading to Everstone Forest!"
"What?" the rest quickly added. "You can't be serious?" they retorted.
"Look, if we want to get there by tomorrow..."
"Get where?" I said wondering if he meant the next house. He smiled and said happily
"My Uncles hotel" As surprised as I was I simply grinned giddily in response.
"Well the next house is in the same city, and I thought we could all do with a rest so I called up my Uncle and asked him to save us a few rooms and he was happy to" We all knew he wasn't exactly the camping type but none of us reviled him given the status of his Uncle's hotel empire.
"You're the best Murphy" I said daydreaming about what would be at his Uncles hotel. I have heard frequently about his five-star hotels. Loads of famous trainers have stayed at his hotels, even one of the Elite Four.
"So how many bedrooms did you ask for?" Amy said suddenly interested
"Oh, I just said a few, I guess that means we might have to share a few, I made the arrangements before we left so I didn't know."
"That's fine" she said happily. She seemed to instinctively turn to me and then instantly looked in front of her again, causing me to experience discomfort.
"There it is" Giles said warily
"Yup" Murphy confidently replied, egging us on to not slow down,
Slowly we started to enter into the Dark, depressing forest which seemed to slowly wrap around us leaving only I small amount of light left for us to see a small, dust path of which we followed cautiously. We all stuck close together in total silence with only the snapping of twigs beneath us and the rustling of the large oak trees' leaves breaking the silence which only added to the already spooky atmosphere. The hairs on my neck and arms stood on end as I my body shivered for a couple of seconds,
"Hey, what was that?" Giles eerily stuttered.
"What was what?" Murphy said looking in the direction Giles was pointing. Suddenly Natascha, Aundrea, Alice and Flareon jumped and formed a protective circle around us.
"Something's coming" My uneasiness reached new peaks, stories of missing persons and murders flooded my mind.
"Wait we don't have to be protected, Flareon change me" Giles commanded on realisation.
"Yeah us too" Murphy, Amy and I said simultaneously. They changed us with only about a second in difference between the first who changed and the last. We joined our partners in the protective circle and stared outwards looking for whatever was coming towards us. We could all feel it's presence but where exactly it was, we hadn't a clue. Suddenly an Umbreon jumped out of the bush beside Amy and smashed into her with a quick attack and then disappeared. Amy was knocked unconscious but we had no time to help her, we had our own worries.
"Watch out guys, it's just used pursuit, it could appear anywhere" Murphy said cautiously.
Suddenly another Umbreon jumped out of the same bush and attacked with shadow ball hitting Giles and causing him to hit a tree, knocking him unconscious, soon after the other Umbreon appeared and attacked Alice wrapping its maw around her leg.
"NO!" Murphy said angrily, firing a water gun at the Umbreon attacking Alice, unfortunately it was quick, very quick dodging water gun and then moving onto Aundrea firing a shadow ball at him which was aimed incredibly well, taking out his legs and then finished it off with another bite.
"No more" I said feeling electricity charging up inside me. I then charged towards the one which hadn't knocked out Aundrea and tried to attack it with volt tackle, it dodged but I wasn't about to stop chasing it. It jumped up into one of the nearby trees and I followed it without a second thought, perfectly copying its foot placements. It turned to see where I was but I was already too close and sent it flying out of the tree.
"Yes!" I said cheering jumping next to the other attempting to startle it. Unfortunately, it didn't work instead it growled rather unnervingly.
"Humph, oh you really shouldn't have done that" As cockily as possible. Suddenly dark energy started building up, circling it which was then soon let go causing the whole area around us to explode with dark energy. It sent everyone flying, excluding the Umbreon that used it and the other one which was too far away to receive the blast.
"Ugh" I stuttered as I crawled to my feet looking over the fresh cuts across my body, nothing life threatening.
"As I said, big mistake"
"What's, your problem?" Natascha growled, who had managed to stay on her feet the whole duration of the blast.
"No problem, I just don't like visitors" Natascha growled and let off a thunder shock which he dodged with ease and then smiled childishly. His speed was almost unparalleled
"This has to end now" I whispered to myself. I dragged myself over to the other Umbreon which was completely paralysed on the floor and shouted
"Hey Umbreon, what would happen if your little friend got a bit of a shock" I grinned cunningly, admittedly it was a bit of an evil proposition but hopefully he wouldn't call my bluff. Electricity started crackling around my head and fur as I started charging up a Thunderbolt. Its eyes quickly widened with horror with the cockiness dissipating instantly.
"No, don't hurt her!" He pleaded. Now I know what I was threatening to do was probably quite cowardly, to seriously hurt a Pokémon which was of no threat but it was all I could think of at that moment.
"Step away from Natascha!" I demanded placing my paw on the neck of the Umbreon which was lying down below me still totally unconscious.
"Natascha?" It said confused "You have names?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Oh, it's generally rare to find Pokémon with Human names."
"If you hadn't noticed we're not all we seem, I guess you hadn't noticed the pile of clothes over there" I said nodding over to all our clothes and luggage on the floor. His eyes widened even further
"No way, you can't be, you're... human?" He stared blankly. Natascha looked at me rather accusingly making me reconsider what I'd just told him, given that we were kind of trying to keep it a secret.
He stopped talking for a few seconds and then smiled in an unnervingly pleasant manner. saying "Nice to meet you, I'm Wolf"
"What?"
"I'm Wolf, and that over there who your standing on is my mate, Bre"
"No! You're not, are you?" He just smiled and answered
"Yep, I'm human too"
"You can't be, what's your real name?" Murphy began to stir with his face screwing up, wincing in pain.
"Joe"
